May 21, 2018

(Fill in the Blank) While Black

There has been a rash of incidents in which a white person called police on African Americans for, among other things, barbecuing, napping, waiting, shopping, and failing to wave at an Airbnb neighbor. Michael Harriot of The Root wrote:

Think about how many tax dollars you could save if police didn’t have to drive to the scene every time Amber thought something was suspicious about the Negro walking through her neighborhood. Imagine how much your city could save on overtime if officers didn’t have to spend hours writing up reports because Connor thought a crafty Negro had bought a uniform, stolen a mail truck and was cruising through your neighborhood, casing your subdivision, planning a series of home invasions by putting mail in people’s mailboxes.

Harriot outlined a five-step plan to help white people step back from calling the police. Step 3 requires creative thinking:

I know it’s scary to see an actual black person in living color, but you should overcome your fear and replace it with logic. One way to do this is by imagining that the person is an actual human being and not a caricature or a stereotype. I know this might sound impossible, but imagine if the person on whom you called the police was behaving in the exact same way, but they were white.

Would they seem so nefarious then?

So wypipo, unless you want to become the next #BBQBecky meme, do not call police on African Americans who are just #LivingWhileBlack.